Alle Publikationen
2019
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(2019) : Social Robots in Therapy and Care: 2019 14th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI): Daegu, Korea: IEEE, S. 669-670
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/HRI.2019.8673243 Abstract: The Social Robots in Therapy workshop series aims at advancing research topics related to the use of robots in the contexts of Social Care and Robot-Assisted Therapy (RAT). Robots in social care and therapy have been a long time promise in HRI as they have the opportunity to improve patients life significantly. Multiple challenges have to be addressed for this, such as building platforms that work in proximity with patients, therapists and health-care professionals; understanding user needs; developing adaptive and autonomous robot interactions; and addressing ethical questions regarding the use of robots with a vulnerable population. The full-day workshop follows last year’s edition which centered on how social robots can improve health-care interventions, how increasing the degree of autonomy of the robots might affect therapies, and how to overcome the ethical challenges inherent to the use of robot assisted technologies. This 2nd edition of the workshop will be focused on the importance of equipping social robots with socio-emotional intelligence and the ability to perform meaningful and personalized interactions. This workshop aims to bring together researchers and industry experts in the fields of Human-Robot Interaction, Machine Learning and Robots in Health and Social Care. It will be an opportunity for all to share and discuss ideas, strategies and findings to guide the design and development of robot-assisted systems for therapy and social care implementations that can provide personalize, natural, engaging and autonomous interactions with patients (and health-care providers).
Keywords: Adaptive Behaviors, adaptive robot interactions, autonomous robot interactions, biomedical education, Conferences, ethical aspects, Health Care, health-care interventions, health-care professionals, health-care providers, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, medical robotics, Medical treatment, Mobile robots, Moral & Ethik, patient treatment, Personalized Behaviors, Radio access technologies, robot assisted technologies, Robot kinematics, robot-assisted systems, robot-assisted therapy, Robots in Therapy, service robot, social care implementations, Social intelligence, social robots, Supervised Autonomy -
(2019): Trust in socially assistive robots: Considerations for use in rehabilitation. In: Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 104, S. 231-239. DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.07.014
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.07.014 Abstract: Incorporation of social robots into rehabilitation calls for understanding what factors affect user motivation and success of the interaction. Trust between the user and the robot has been identified as important in human-robot interaction and in human-human interactions in therapy. Trust has been studied in the context of automation technology, (e.g., autonomous cars), but not in the context of social robots for rehabilitation. In this narrative review, we address the unique patient-clinician-robot triad, and argue that this context calls for specific design features in order to foster trust with the users. We review pertinent methods for measuring trust, and studies demonstrating that culture, prior experience and propensity-to-trust affect to what extent users trust robots. We suggest design guidelines for fostering trust and methods for measuring trust in human-robot interactions in rehabilitation. We stress the need to create measures of trust that are accessible to people who suffer from speech or cognitive impairments. This review is pertinent to researchers, roboticists, and clinicians interested in designing and using social robots for rehabilitation.
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(2019) : Good Robot Design or Machiavellian? An In-the-Wild Robot Leveraging Minimal Knowledge of Passersby’s Culture: 2019 14th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI): Daegu, Korea: IEEE, S. 382-391
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/HRI.2019.8673326 Abstract: Social robots are being designed to use human-like communication techniques, including body language, social signals, and empathy, to work effectively with people. Just as between people, some robots learn about people and adapt to them. In this paper we present one such robot design: we developed Sam, a robot that learns minimal information about a person’s background, and adapts to this background. Our in-the-wild study found that people helped Sam for significantly longer when it adapted to match their background. While initially we saw this as a success, in re-considering our study we started seeing a different angle. Our robot effectively deceived people (changed its story and text), based on some knowledge of their background, to get more work from them. There was little direct benefit to the person from this adaptation, yet the robot stood to gain free labor. We would like to pose the question to the community: is this simply good robot design, or, is our robot being manipulative? Where does the ethical line lay between a robot leveraging social techniques to improve interaction, and the more negative framing of a robot or algorithm taking advantage of people? How can we decide what is good here, and what is less desirable?
Keywords: Body language, Cultural differences, Culture, Ethics, Global communication, human-like communication techniques, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, in the wild, in-the-wild robot, learning (artificial intelligence), minimal information, Mobile robots, Mood, Moral & Ethik, passersby culture, Persuasive Robots, robot design, Robots, Sam, Shape, social robots, Social signals, social techniques, Task Analysis -
(2019) : User Experience for Social Human-Robot Interactions: 2019 Amity International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AICAI): Dubai, United Arab Emirates: IEEE, S. 32-36
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/AICAI.2019.8701332 Abstract: A significant threat social robots often faces is that their integration in real social, human environments will dehumanise some of the roles currently being played by the humans. This perception implicitly overestimates the social skills of the robots, which despite being continually upgraded, are still far from being able to dominate humans entirely. It also reflects loosely fears that robots may overcome humans in the near future and impact on the need to employ humans. This paper aims to address the role and relevance of user experience of socially interactive robots, separating several issues related to the evaluation of social human-robot interaction and then more specifically how this should be considered in developing countries where socially interactive robots are viewed with resistance and apprehension.
Keywords: Developing Countries, human environments, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, Künstliche Intelligenz, Mobile robots, Robot sensing systems, service robot, Social Environments, social human-robot interaction, social robots, Social Skills, socially interactive robots, User acceptance, user experience -
(2019): Media are social actors: Individuals’ social responses to social robots and mobile phones. ProQuest Information & Learning.
Abstract: The Computers are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm was proposed more than two decades ago to understand humans’ interaction with computer technologies. Today, as emerging media technologies including social robots and smartphones become more personal and persuasive, questions of how users respond to them socially, what individual factors leverage the relationship, and what constitutes the social influence of these technologies need to be addressed. As an expansion of the CASA paradigm, the Media are Social Actors (MASA) paradigm was applied in the current dissertation to understand users’ social perception, social attitudes, and social behavior in their interactions with humanoid social robots and smartphones. Two lab experiments with between-subjects factorial design were conducted. A total of 110 participants were asked to interact with a humanoid social robot and a smartphone respectively in a socio-emotional context and a task-oriented context. Four pairs of social cues were compared to understand their influence on users’ anthropomorphism of the technologies. Multivariate analyses and textual analyses were conducted. Results suggested that users developed more trust in the social robot with a human voice than with a synthetic voice. Users also developed more intimacy and more interest in the social robot when the robot was paired with humanlike gestures. However, individual differences such as users’ attitudes toward robots, robot use experiences, and suspension of disbelief affected users’ psychological responses to the social robot. Although users’ responses to the smartphone did not vary based on the language styles and the modalities, factors such as individuals’ intensive smartphone use, mobile use habits, and their source orientation and re-orientation moderated the social influence of the smartphone. The dissertation has theoretical value in expanding the CASA paradigm to social robots and smartphones. It also tests the validity of the propositions of the MASA paradigm. The results can lead to more comprehensive, nuanced, and exciting discoveries of the social implications, ethical implications, and practical guides of using these emerging media technologies in the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
Keywords: Language, Media, mobile phones, Moral & Ethik, Robotics, social actors, social media, social responses, social robots 2018
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(2018) : Adapting Robot Behavior using Regulatory Focus Theory, User Physiological State and Task-Performance Information: 2018 27th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN): Nanjing, China: IEEE Robotics & Automation Society, S. 644-651
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2018.8525648 Abstract: Social robots are expected to be part of everyday life of people. This will generate interactions between humans and robots that may have positive or negative effects on the users. In order to minimize the negative effects and increase robot persuasiveness, robots should behave in an appropriate manner by adapting to their users. How to achieve this adaptation remains a challenge. We propose the usage of the Regulatory Focus Theory, user physiological state, and game-performance information in order to detect user stress and adapt the behavior of the robot. We present a longitudinal experiment conducted with 35 participants in a game-like scenario. The robot was trained for adapting to the regulatory focus of the users and decreasing their stress while they were playing the game. For this reason, we trained the robot with 12 participants with Chronic Promotion State and with 12 participants with Chronic Prevention State. We used a Q-Learning algorithm based on the Regulatory Focus of the participants, user stress, and task performance. The model obtained was tested with 2 groups (6 and 5 participants, respectively) according to their Chronic Regulatory Focus. Results show that our system was able to generate a robot behavior capable of increasing robot persuasiveness and reducing user stress, which is of great importance for social robots.
Keywords: Adaptive systems, Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), chronic promotion state, chronic regulatory focus, game-like scenario, game-performance information, Games, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, learning (artificial intelligence), physiology, regulatory focus theory, robot behavior, robot persuasiveness, Robot sensing systems, social robots, Stress, Task Analysis, Task Performance, task-performance information, user physiological state -
(2018) : Artificial Empathy in Social Robots: An analysis of Emotions in Speech: 2018 27th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN): Nanjing, China: IEEE Robotics & Automation Society, S. 632-637
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2018.8525652 Abstract: Artificial speech developed using speech synthesizers has been used as the voice for robots in Human Robot Interaction (HRI). As humans anthropomorphize robots, an empathetically interacting robot is expected to increase the level of acceptance of social robots. Here, a human perception experiment evaluates whether human subjects perceive empathy in robot speech. For this experiment, empathy is expressed only by adding appropriate emotions to the words in speech. Also, humans’ preferences for a robot interacting with empathetic speech versus a standard robotic voice are also assessed. The results show that humans are able to perceive empathy and emotions in robot speech, and prefer it over the standard robotic voice. It is important for the emotions in empathetic speech to be consistent with the language content of what is being said, and with the human users’ emotional state. Analyzing emotions in empathetic speech using valence-arousal model has revealed the importance of secondary emotions in developing empathetically speaking social robots.
Keywords: Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), Anthropomorphism, appropriate emotions, artificial empathy, artificial speech, control engineering computing, emotion recognition, empathetic speech, empathetically interacting robot, human perception experiment, Human robot interaction, human subjects, human users, human-robot interaction, Humans, ieee xplore, Medical services, robot interacting, Robot sensing systems, robot speech, Robots, service robot, social robots, speech synthesis, speech synthesizers, standard robotic voice, standards, Task Analysis -
(2018) : A Computational Framework for Integrating Task Planning and Norm Aware Reasoning for Social Robots: 2018 27th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN): Nanjing, China: IEEE Robotics & Automation Society, S. 282-287
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2018.8525577 Abstract: Autonomous robots are envisioned to increasingly become part of our lives in the house, restaurants, hospitals and offices. Additionally, self-driving cars will be soon appearing in city streets and highways and they will have to interact with cars driven by humans as well as other self-driving cars. In these settings the robots not only need to efficiently perform their tasks but also be able to interact with humans in socially appropriate ways. To accomplish this, robots must be able to reason not only on how to perform their tasks, but also incorporate societal values, social norms and legal rules so they can gain human acceptability and trust. Moreover, interactions with these robots will be long term. Long-term human interaction with robots as well as robot combined reasoning about both tasks and social norms generate multiple modeling and computational challenges. In this paper, we address one of the most important of these challenges, namely what is an appropriate and scalable computational framework that enables simultaneous task and normative reasoning. In particular, we report on our work on a novel computational framework, Modular Normative Markov Decision Processes (MNMDP) that integrates reasoning for domain tasks and normative reasoning for long-term autonomy. The MNMDP framework applies normative reasoning considering only the norms that are activated in appropriate contexts, rather than considering the full set of norms, thus significantly reducing computational complexity. The model modularity is also advantageous for long-term human-robot interaction. We present computational experiments that show significant computational improvements as compared with a base Normative Markov Decision Process (MDP) framework that includes the full set of norms.
Keywords: Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), Autonomous automobiles, autonomous robots, Cognition, Computational complexity, Decision theory, human acceptability, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, inference mechanisms, knowledge based systems, long-term human interaction, Markov processes, MNMDP framework, Mobile robots, modular normative Markov decision processes, norm aware reasoning, normative Markov decision process framework, Normative reasoning, path planning, Planning, robot combined reasoning, self-driving cars, Social Norms, social robots, societal values, Task Analysis, task planning -
(2018): The essence of ethical reasoning in robot-emotion processing. In: International Journal of Social Robotics 10 (2), S. 211-223. DOI: 10.1007/s12369-017-0459-y
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-017-0459-y Abstract: As social robots become more and more intelligent and autonomous in operation, it is extremely important to ensure that such robots act in socially acceptable manner. More specifically, if such an autonomous robot is capable of generating and expressing emotions of its own, it should also have an ability to reason if it is ethical to exhibit a particular emotional state in response to a surrounding event. Most existing computational models of emotion for social robots have focused on achieving a certain level of believability of the emotions expressed. We argue that believability of a robot’s emotions, although crucially necessary, is not a sufficient quality to elicit socially acceptable emotions. Thus, we stress on the need of higher level of cognition in emotion processing mechanism which empowers social robots with an ability to decide if it is socially appropriate to express a particular emotion in a given context or it is better to inhibit such an experience. In this paper, we present the detailed mathematical explanation of the ethical reasoning mechanism in our computational model, EEGS, that helps a social robot to reach to the most socially acceptable emotional state when more than one emotions are elicited by an event. Experimental results show that ethical reasoning in EEGS helps in the generation of believable as well as socially acceptable emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
2017
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(2017): Personal greetings: Personalizing robot utterances based on novelty of observed behavior. In: International Journal of Social Robotics 9 (2), S. 181-198. DOI: 10.1007/s12369-016-0385-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-016-0385-4 Abstract: One challenge in creating conversational service robots is how to reproduce the kind of individual recognition and attention that a human can provide. We believe that interactions can be made to seem more warm and humanlike by using sensors to observe a person’s behavior or appearance over time, and programming the robot to comment when it observes a novel feature, such as a new hairstyle, or a consistent behavior, such as visiting every afternoon. To create a system capable of recognizing such novelty and typicality, we collected one month of training data from customers in a shopping mall and recorded features of people’s visits, such as time of day and group size. We then trained SVM classifiers to identify each feature as novel, typical, or neither, based on the inputs of a human coder, and we trained an additional classifier to choose an appropriate topic for a personalized greeting. An utterance generator was developed to generate text for the robot to speak, based on the selected topic and sensor data. A cross-validation analysis showed that the trained classifiers could accurately reproduce human novelty judgments with 88% accuracy and topic selection with 95% accuracy. We then deployed a teleoperated robot using this system to greet customers in a shopping mall for three weeks, and we present example interactions and results from interviews showing that customers appreciated the robot’s personalized greetings and felt a sense of familiarity with the robot. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
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(2017): Sociality and Normativity for Robots. Philosophical Inquiries into Human-Robot Interactions. Cham: Springer International Publishing (Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality). Online verfügbar unter https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gbv/detail.action?docID=4867905
Abstract: This volume offers eleven philosophical investigations into our futurerelations with social robots--robots that are specially designed to engage andconnect with human beings.The contributors present cutting edge research thatexamines whether, and on which terms, robots can become members ofhuman societies. Can our relations to robots be said to be 'social'?Can robots enter into normative relationships with human beings? Howwill human social relations change when we interact with robots atwork and at home?The authors of this volume explore these questions from theperspective of philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, androbotics. The first three chapters offer a taxonomy for the classificationof simulated social interactions, investigate whether human socialinteractions with robots can be genuine, and discuss the significanceof social relations for the formation of human individuality.Subsequent chapters clarify whether robots could be said to actuallyfollow social norms, whether they could live up to the socialmeaning of care in caregiving professions, and how we will need toprogram robots so that they can negotiate the conventions of humansocial space and collaborate with humans. Can we perform jointactions with robots, where both sides need to honour commitments, andhow will such new commitments and practices change our regionalcultures?The authors connect research in social robotics andempirical studies in Human-Robot Interaction to recent debates insocial ontology, social cognition, as well as ethics and philosophy oftechnology.The book is a response to the challenge that social robotics presentsfor our traditional conceptions of social interaction, whichpresuppose such essential capacities as consciousness, intentionality,agency, and normative understanding. The authors develop insightfulanswers along new interdisciplinarypathways in 'robophilosophy,' a new research area that will help us toshape the 'robot revolution,' the distinctive technological change ofthe beginning 21st century. Raul Hakli (PhD) studied philosophy and computer science at theUniversity of Helsinki, Finland. He received his PhD in theoreticalphilosophy in 2010. While editing the book he was Associate Professorat the Aarhus University, Denmark. Currently he works as a researcherat the University of Helsinki, Finland. His research interests includesocial ontology, collective intentionality, epistemology, philosophyof social robotics, and philosophy of the social sciences. Johanna Seibt (PhD. at the Univ of Pittsburg, USA; Dr. phil. habil. atthe Univ of Konstanz, Germany) is Professor for Applied ProcessOntology and Integrative Social Robotics, Aarhus University, Denmark;previously she taught at the Univ of Texas at Austin, USA. Her mainresearch area is in analytical ontology and metaphysics. More recentlyshe works also in philosophy of social robotics. She is head of theResearch Unit for Robophilosophy at the School for Culture and Society, Aarhus University, which conducts interdisciplinaryHumanities research of and in social robotics and coordinates theinternational Research Network for Transdisciplinary Studies in SocialRobotics (TRANSOR).
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(2017) : Cross-cultural differences for adaptive strategies of robots in public spaces: 2017 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN): Lisbon, Portugal: IEEE Robotics & Automation Society, S. 573-578
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2017.8172360 Abstract: Robots deployed in public spaces must necessarily deal with situations that demand them to engage humans in a socially and culturally appropriate manner. However, social environments are often complex and ambiguous: many queries to the robot are collaborative (e.g. a family), and in case of conflicting queries, social robots need to participate in value decisions and negotiating multi-party interactions. Given the strong influence of the people’s demographic information and social schema among people, such as relationships and hierarchies, the focus of this research is to examine whether and how people exhibit socio-psychological effects with a shared robot deployed at international events or spaces (e.g. airports). With the aim to investigate who robots should adapt to (children or adults) in multi-party situations within human-robot interactions in public spaces and whether this adaptation can be influenced by culture, this paper presents a cross-cultural study conducted online. The results include a number of interesting findings based on people’s relationship with a child and their parental status. In addition, a number of cross-cultural differences were identified in respondents’ attitude towards robot’s multi-party adaptation in various public settings.
Keywords: Airports, Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), control engineering computing, cross-cultural differences, cultural aspects, Cultural differences, Face recognition, Foot, human-robot interaction, human-robot interactions, ieee xplore, multiparty adaptation, PSYCHOLOGY, public spaces, Robots, social robots, socio-psychological effects, speech, Videos -
(2017) : On how self-body awareness improves autonomy in social robots: 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO): Parisian Macao, China: IEEE, S. 1688-1693
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ROBIO.2017.8324661 Abstract: Just as humans show consciousness of their body, social robots, in the way to be truly autonomous need to be aware of their body posture. Feasible gestures, moves and actions depend on the current body posture. The work developed in this paper aims to empirically show how self configuration recognition augments the degree of autonomy of a robot in the context of entertainment robotics. The integration of a classification tree for body posture identification based on data acquired from proprioceptive sensors of a NAO robot allows to interact with the robot in a more flexible and persistent manner. As a result, the robot shows a more sound behavior and greater degree of autonomy. Moreover, even if the body-awareness has been developed for minstrel robots, its application can be generalized to other contexts.
Keywords: body posture identification, current body posture, Decision trees, Entertainment industry, entertainment robotics, Gesture recognition, Humanoid Robots, ieee xplore, Künstliche Intelligenz, Legged locomotion, minstrel robots, NAO robot, Robot kinematics, Robot sensing systems, self configuration recognition, self-body awareness, social robots -
(2017): Toward Socially Aware Robot Navigation in Dynamic and Crowded Environments. A Proactive Social Motion Model. In: IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering 14 (4), S. 1743-1760. DOI: 10.1109/TASE.2017.2731371
Abstract: Safe and social navigation is the key to deploying a mobile service robot in a human-centered environment. Widespread acceptability of mobile service robots in daily life is hindered by robot's inability to navigate in crowded and dynamic human environments in a socially acceptable way that would guarantee human safety and comfort. In this paper, we propose an effective proactive social motion model (PSMM) that enables a mobile service robot to navigate safely and socially in crowded and dynamic environments. The proposed method considers not only human states (position, orientation, motion, field of view, and hand poses) relative to the robot but also social interactive information about human-object and human group interactions. This allows development of the PSMM that consists of elements of an extended social force model and a hybrid reciprocal velocity obstacle technique. The PSMM is then combined with a path planning technique to generate a motion planning system that drives a mobile robot in a socially acceptable manner and produces respectful and polite behaviors akin to human movements. Note to Practitioners-In this paper, we validated the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed proactive social motion model (PSMM) through both simulation and real-world experiments under the newly proposed human comfortable safety indices. To do that, we first implemented the entire navigation system using the open-source robot operating system. We then installed it in a simulated robot model and conducted experiments in a simulated shopping mall-like environment to verify its effectiveness. We also installed the proposed algorithm on our mobile robot platform and conducted experiments in our office-like laboratory environment. Our results show that the developed socially aware navigation framework allows a mobile robot to navigate safely, socially, and proactively while guaranteeing human safety and comfort in crowded and dynamic environments. In this paper, we examined the proposed PSMM with a set of predefined parameters selected based on our empirical experiences about the robot mechanism and selected social environment. However, in fact a mobile robot might need to adapt to various contextual and cultural situations in different social environments. Thus, it should be equipped with an online adaptive interactive learning mechanism allowing the robot to learn to auto-adjust their parameters according to such embedded environments. Using machine learning techniques, e.g., inverse reinforcement learning [1] to optimize the parameter set for the PSMM could be a promising research direction to improve adaptability of mobile service robots in different social environments. In the future, we will evaluate the proposed framework based on a wider variety of scenarios, particularly those with different social interaction situations and dynamic environments. Furthermore, various kinds of social cues and signals introduced in [2] and [3] will be applied to extend the proposed framework in more complicated social situations and contexts. Last but not least, we will investigate different machine learning techniques and incorporate them in the PSMM in order to allow the robot to automatically adapt to diverse social environments.
Keywords: Disziplin, Favoriten, Human comfortable safety, Ingenieurswissenschaft, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), mobile service robots, Modelle/Theorien, proactive social motion model (PSMM), Realtechnik, Robotics, Serviceroboter, social field and polite, social robots, socially aware robot navigation, Soziale Robotik, Technik 2016
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(2016) : Physical and moral disgust in socially believable behaving systems in different cultures In: Esposito, Anna; Jain, Lakhmi C. (Hg.): Toward robotic socially believable behaving systems: Modeling emotions., Vol. I, 105: Cham: Springer International Publishing (Intelligent systems reference library; Vol 105; ISSN: 1868-4394 (Print), 1868-4408 (Electronic)), S. 105-132
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31056-5_7 Abstract: The aim of the present study is to use the GRID, online emotions sorting and corpus methodologies to illuminate different types of disgust that an emotion-sensitive socially interacting robot would need to encode and decode in order to competently produce and recognise these and other types of physical, moral and aesthetic types of complex emotions in social settings. We argue that emotions in general, and different types of disgust as an instance of these, differ with respect to the amount of cognitivegrounding they need in order to arise and social robots will successfully use such emotions provided they do not only recognise and produce physical, bodily manifestations of emotions, but also have access to large knowledge bases and are able to process situational context clues. The different types of disgust are identified and compared cross-culturally to provide an evaluation of their relative salience. The study also underscores the conceptual viewpoint of emotions as clusters of emotions rather than solitary, individual representations. We argue that such clustering should be at the heart of emotions modelling in social robots. In order to successfully use the emotion of disgust in their interactions with humans, robots need to be sensitive to possible within-culture and cross-culture differences pertaining to such emotions, exemplified by British English and Polish in the present study. Given the centrality of values to the emotion of disgust, robots need to have the capacity to update from a knowledge base and learn from the situational context the set of values for each significant human that they interact with. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
Keywords: Aesthetics, BEHAVIOR, British English, Cross Cultural Differences, Disgust, Disgust cluster, Emotion event (scenario), Emotions, GRID, Language, Language corpora, Moral & Ethik, Moral emotions, Morality, Online emotions sorting study, Polish, Robotics, Social robotic, social robots, Translation data, Wstret cluster 2015
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(2015) : Robot Form and Motion Influences Social Attention: 2015 10th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI): Portland, Oregon, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, S. 43-50
Abstract: For social robots to be successful, they need to be accepted by humans. Human-robot interaction (HRI) researchers are aware of the need to develop the right kinds of robots with appropriate, natural ways for them to interact with humans. However, much of human perception and cognition occurs outside of conscious awareness, and how robotic agents engage these processes is currently unknown. Here, we explored automatic, reflexive social attention, which operates outside of conscious control within a fraction of a second to discover whether and how these processes generalize to agents with varying humanlikeness in their form and motion. Using a social variant of a well-established spatial attention paradigm, we tested whether robotic or human appearance and/or motion influenced an agent’s ability to capture or direct implicit social attention. In each trial, either images or videos of agents looking to one side of space (a head turn) were presented to human observers. We measured reaction time to a peripheral target as an index of attentional capture and direction. We found that all agents, regardless of humanlike form or motion, were able to direct spatial attention in the cued direction. However, differences in the form of the agent affected attentional capture, i.e., how quickly the observers could disengage attention from the agent and respond to the target. This effect further interacted with whether the spatial cue (head turn) was presented through static images or videos. Overall whereas reflexive social attention operated in the same manner for human and robot social agents for spatial attentional cueing, robotic appearance, as well as whether the agent was static or moving significantly influenced unconscious attentional capture processes. These studies reveal how unconscious social attentional processes operate when the agent is a human vs. a robot, add novel manipulations to the literature such as the role of visual motion, and provide a link between attention studies in HRI, and decades of research on unconscious social attention in experimental psychology and vision science.Categories and Subject Descriptors H.1.2 [Models and Principles]: User/Machine Systems -Human factors. H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces - Evaluation/methodology, User-Centered DesignGeneral TermsDesign, Human Factors.
Keywords: Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), automatic attention, Biology, Cognition, conscious awareness, conscious control, cued direction, Experimental Psychology, head turn, HRI, human appearance, Human Factors, human observers, human perception, humanlike form, Humanlikeness, human-robot interaction, Human-robot interaction researchers, ieee xplore, implicit social attention, Kinematics, Mobile robots, motion influences social attention, PSYCHOLOGY, reflexive social attention, robot design, robot form, Robot sensing systems, robotic agents, robotic appearance, Social Attention, social robots, social variant, Spatial Attention, spatial attention paradigm, spatial attentional cueing, spatial cue, static images, Time measurement, unconscious attentional capture processes, unconscious social attention, unconscious social attentional processes, user interfaces, User/Machine Systems-Human factors, varying humanlikeness, Videos, visual motion, Visual Perception -
(2015) : Perception of Affective Body Movements in HRI across Age Groups: Comparison between Results from Denmark and Japan: 2015 International Conference on Culture and Computing (Culture Computing): Kyoto, Japan: IEEE, S. 25-32
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/Culture.and.Computing.2015.14 Abstract: Social robots are envisioned to move into unrestricted environments where they will be interacting with naive users (in terms of their experience as robot operators). Thus, these robots are also envisioned to exploit interaction channels that are natural to humans like speech, gestures, or body movements. A specificity of these interaction channels is that humans do not only convey task-related information but also more subtle information like e.g. Emotions or personal stance through these channels. Thus, to be successful and not accidentally jeopardizing an interaction, robots need to be able to understand these implicit connotations of the signals (often called social signal processing) in order to generate appropriate signals in a given interaction context. One main application area that is envisioned for social robots is related to elder care, but little is known on how seniors will perceive robots and the signals they produce. In this paper we focus on affective connotations of body movements and investigate how the perception of body movements of robots is related to age. Inspired by a study from Japan, we introduce culture as a variable in the experiment and discuss the difficulties of cross-cultural comparisons. The results show that there are certain age-related differences in the perception of affective body movements, but not as strong as in the original study. A follow up experiment puts the affective body movements into context and shows that recognition rates deteriorate for older participants.
Keywords: affective body movement perception, affective body movements, age groups, age-related differences, Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), assisted living, Context, cross-cultural analysis, Cultural differences, culturally aware technology, Denmark, elder care, emotion information, Face, HRI, Human Factors, Human robot interaction, Humanoid Robots, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, implicit connotation, interaction channels, Japan, Legged locomotion, Observers, personal stance information, robot operators, Robots, service robot, social robots, social signal processing, task-related information, TV, unrestricted environments, Videos -
(2015): A cloud robotics approach towards dialogue-oriented robot speech. In: Advanced Robotics 29 (7), S. 449-456. DOI: 10.1080/01691864.2015.1009164
Abstract: Robot utterances generally sound monotonous, unnatural and unfriendly because their Text-to-Speech systems are not optimized for communication but for text reading. Here, we present a non-monologue speech synthesis for robots. The key novelty lies in speech synthesis based on Hidden Markov models (HMMs) using a non-monologue corpus: we collected a speech corpus in a non-monologue style in which two professional voice talents read scripted dialogues, and HMMs were then trained with the corpus and used for speech synthesis. We conducted experiments in which the proposed method was evaluated by 24 subjects in three scenarios: text reading, dialogue and domestic service robot (DSR) scenarios. In the DSR scenario, we used a physical robot and compared our proposed method with a baseline method using the standard Mean Opinion Score criterion. Our experimental results showed that our proposed method's performance was (1) at the same level as the baseline method in the text-reading scenario and (2) exceeded it in the DSR scenario. We deployed our proposed system as a cloud-based speech synthesis service so that it can be used without any cost.
2014
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(2014): Evaluation of Proxemic Scaling Functions for Social Robotics. In: IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems 44 (3), S. 374-385. DOI: 10.1109/THMS.2014.2304075
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/THMS.2014.2304075 Abstract: This paper introduces and empirically evaluates two scaling functions to alter a robot’s physical movements based on proximity to a human. Previous research has focused on individual aspects of proxemics, like the appropriate distance to maintain from a human, but has not explored autonomous methods to adapt robot behavior as proximity changes. This paper proposes that robots in a social role should modify their behavior using a continuous function mapped to proximity. The method developed calculates a gain value from proximity readings, which is used to shape the execution of active behaviors on the robot. In order to identify the effects of different mappings from proximity to gain value, two different scaling functions were implemented on an affective search and rescue robot. The findings from a 72 participant study, in a high-fidelity mock disaster site, are examined with attention given to a new measure to determine proxemic awareness. The results indicated that for attributes of intelligence, likability, proxemic awareness, and submissiveness, a logarithmic-based scaling function is preferred over a linear-based scaling function, and over no scaling function. In areas of participant comfort and participant stress, the results indicated both logarithmic and linear scaling functions were preferred to no scaling.
Keywords: Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), Atmospheric measurements, autonomous methods, disasters, emergency services, high-fidelity mock disaster site, Human–robot interaction (HRI), human–robot proxemics, ieee xplore, intelligence attributes, Interpolation, Joints, Lighting, linear-based scaling function, logarithmic-based scaling function, Particle measurements, proxemic awareness, proxemic scaling function evaluation, Proxemics, rescue robots, robot physical movements, Robot sensing systems, search, service robot, Social robotic, social robots, submissiveness attributes -
(2014) : Moral competence in social robots: 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Ethics in Science, Technology and Engineering: Chicago, IL, USA: IEEE, S. 1-6
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ETHICS.2014.6893446 Abstract: We propose that any robots that collaborate with, look after, or help humans-in short, social robots-must have moral competence. But what does moral competence consist of? We offer a framework for moral competence that attempts to be comprehensive in capturing capacities that make humans morally competent and that therefore represent candidates for a morally competent robot. We posit that human moral competence consists of four broad components: (1) A system of norms and the language and concepts needed to communicate about these norms; (2) moral cognition and affect; (3) moral decision making and action; and (4) moral communication. We sketch what we know and don’t know about these four elements of moral competence in humans and, for each component, ask how we could equip an artificial agent with these capacities.
Keywords: Affect, Artificial agent, Cognition, Communities, Context, Decision Making, ethical aspects, Ethics, Human Factors, human moral competence, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, intentionality, Mobile robots, Moral & Ethik, Moral action, moral affect, Moral agency, Moral cognition, moral communication, moral decision making, moral language, norms system, PSYCHOLOGY, Robots, Social Cognition, social robots -
(2014): Evaluation of Head Gaze Loosely Synchronized With Real-Time Synthetic Speech for Social Robots. In: IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems 44 (6), S. 767-778. DOI: 10.1109/THMS.2014.2342035
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/THMS.2014.2342035 Abstract: This study demonstrates that robots can achieve socially acceptable interactions using loosely synchronized head gaze-speech acts. Prior approaches use tightly synchronized head gaze-speech, which requires significant human effort and time to manually annotate synchronization events in advance, restricts interactive dialog, or requires that the operator acts as a puppeteer. This paper describes how autonomous synchronization of head gaze can be achieved by exploiting affordances in the sentence structure and time delays. A 93-participant user study was conducted in a simulated disaster site. The rescue robot “Survivor Buddy” generated head gaze for a victim management scenario using a 911 dialog. The study used pre- and postinteraction questionnaires to compare the social acceptance level of loosely synchronized head gaze-speech against tightly synchronized head gaze-speech (manual annotation) and no head gaze-speech conditions. The results indicated that for attributes of Self-Assessment Manikin, i.e., Arousal, Robot Likeability, Human-Like Behavior, Understanding Robot Behavior, Gaze-Speech Synchronization, Looking at Objects at Appropriate Times, and Natural Movement, the loosely synchronized head gaze-speech is similar to tightly synchronized head gaze-speech and preferred to the no head gaze-speech case. This study contributes to a fundamental understanding of the role of social head gaze in social acceptance for human-machine interaction, how social gaze can be produced, and promotes practical implementation in social robots.
Keywords: Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), Autonomous generation, autonomous head gaze synchronization, Evaluation, human robot interactions, Human-Machine Interaction, human-robot interaction, Human–robot interaction, ieee xplore, interactive conversation, interactive systems, loosely synchronized head gaze-speech acts, real-time synthetic speech, Real-time systems, rescue robots, Robot kinematics, self-assessment manikin, social head gaze, social robots, speech, Survivor Buddy rescue robot, synchronisation, Synchronization, tightly synchronized head gaze-speech, User study, victim management scenario 2013
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(2013): Exploring influencing variables for the acceptance of social robots. In: Robotics and Autonomous Systems 61 (12), S. 1476-1486. DOI: 10.1016/j.robot.2013.07.007
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2013.07.007 Abstract: In order to introduce social robots successfully, we must first understand the underlying reasons whereupon potential users accept these robots to reside within their own homes. An extensive literature review has been conducted and provides an overview of variables influencing the acceptance of social robots categorized by utilitarian variables, hedonic variables, user characteristics, social normative beliefs and control beliefs. In a user study, in which 60 participants interacted with a social robot, both the robot itself and the interaction experience the users had with the robot were evaluated. The results indicate that especially the variables of usefulness, adaptability, enjoyment, sociability, companionship and perceived behavioral control are important evaluating the user acceptance of social robots. Hence, the present study contributes to human–robot interaction research by designating the variables that lead to social robot acceptance. Subsequently, this study may serve as a onset in developing an integral model which takes into consideration the relevant determinants of social robot acceptance.
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(2013) : It’s not polite to point Generating socially-appropriate deictic behaviors towards people: 2013 8th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI): Tokyo, Japan: IEEE, S. 267-274
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/HRI.2013.6483598 Abstract: Pointing behaviors are used for referring to objects and people in everyday interactions, but the behaviors used for referring to objects are not necessarily polite or socially appropriate for referring to humans. In this study, we confirm that although people would point precisely to an object to indicate where it is, they were hesitant to do so when pointing to another person. We propose a model for generating socially-appropriate deictic behaviors in a robot. The model is based on balancing two factors: understandability and social appropriateness. In an experiment with a robot in a shopping mall, we found that the robot’s deictic behavior was perceived as more polite, more natural, and better overall when using our model, compared with a model considering understandability alone.
Keywords: Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), Data Collection, Data models, Fingers, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, Indexes, intelligent robots, pointing behaviors, pointing gesture, Robots, shopping mall, social appropriateness, social robots, social sciences, socially-appropriate deictic robot behavior generation, understandability, Visualization 2012
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(2012): Teleoperation of Multiple Social Robots. In: IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics - Part A: Systems and Humans 42 (3), S. 530-544. DOI: 10.1109/TSMCA.2011.2164243
Abstract: Teleoperation of multiple robots by a single operator has been studied extensively for applications such as search and navigation; however, this concept has never been applied to the field of social, conversational robots. In this paper, we explore the unique challenges posed by the remote operation of multiple social robots, where an operator must perform auditory multitasking to assist multiple interactions at once. It describes the general system requirements in four areas: social human-robot interaction (HRI) design, autonomy design, multirobot coordination, and teleoperation interface design. Based on this design framework, we have developed a system in which a single operator can simultaneously control four robots in conversational interactions with users. Key elements of our implementation include a control architecture enabling the scripting of conditional behavior flows for social interaction, a graphical interface enabling an operator to control one robot at a time while monitoring several others in the background, and a technique called "proactive timing control," which is an automated method for smoothly interleaving the demands of multiple robots for the operator's attention. We also present metrics for describing and predicting robot performance, and we show experimental results demonstrating the effectiveness of our system through simulations and a laboratory experiment based on real-world interactions.
Keywords: Adjustable autonomy, communication robots, human-robot interaction (HRI), Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), multiple robots, networked robots, Realtechnik, single-operator multiple-robot systems, social robots, Sozial Intelligente Agenten, Soziale Robotik, supervisory control, Technik, teleoperation of social robots -
(2012): Presence, reciprocity and robotic mediations: The case of autonomous social roots. In: International Journal of Technoethics 3 (2), S. 9-16. DOI: 10.4018/jte.2012040102
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/jte.2012040102 Abstract: In this paper, the author proposes a theoretical framework for drawing a line between acceptable and non-acceptable technologies, with a focus on autonomous social robots. The author considers robots as mediations and their ethical acceptance as depending on their impact on the notion of presence. Presence is characterised by networks of reciprocity which make human beings subject and object of actions and perceptions at the same time. Technological mediation can either promote or inhibit the reciprocity of presence. A medium that inhibits presence deserves ethical evaluation since it prevents the possibility of a mutual exchange, thus creating a form of power. Autonomous social robots are a special kind of technological mediation because they replace human presence with a simulation of presence. Therefore, in interactions between human beings and autonomous robots, attention should be paid to the consequences on legal, moral, and social responsibility, and, at the same time, the impact of simulated forms of presence on human beings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)